


One to Sacrifice

by perryvic, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Pray Your Gods [4]
Category: A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cthulhu Mythos, M/M, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 03:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17216162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: Enclaves of ancient protections were activated and it was to one of these that John and myself were taken barely sensible of our surroundings. For it seemed that our immersion in the unnatural energies had a debilitating effect, let alone the burns and injuries. I had fortunately been conscious enough to vouch for him, at least to begin with but I feared what happens next. For the silver Hand is inert upon my wrist, its intoxicating power a memory, reduced to a symbol rather than a weapon.





	One to Sacrifice

I imagine that my father would have, should he have still been alive, been deeply pleased by what we had accomplished. Last I had heard, the Moran family holdings had been left smoldering, and briefly over-run by creatures described as great multi-segmented insects that polished huge, now barren furrows in the land as they passed. I had not given them much thought in the interim as truly I never believed I would be in a position to place pen to paper again, or indeed expected to organize words into any form of sane recollection of the momentous calamities that have befallen the world since I took that final desperate leap of faith after John into the Beyond.

I was still finding out details of what had occurred during my absence from this mortal plane; I am told that my return has been made into legend inflated in the telling from person to person. A human figure erupting amid fire and blazing light bringing death and destruction to the invaders, lightning hurling, commanding an army on a battlefield of hallowed soil.

I remember stepping through the gate, to find John, knowing I had lingered too long, believing Moriarty had joined the Royal family in their rallying point, and not knowing where Holmes had gone. All was scattered and ruin, and the sky was a roil of lightning high in the atmosphere and I stepped through without fear, thinking only of John.

We had made a pact, or a promise that if all hope should be gone that we would enter the breach to seek out what the distorted recollection of Holmes had imparted to the Limping Doctor - a weapon or a device that had in antiquity banished even Great Old Ones from these shores. We trusted in the revelation that a focus would shield the self from the mind disintegrating nature of the Royals, but even so I had been unprepared for the onslaught until a human hand had grasped my own in that hellish dimension of unnatural writhing energy.

John. How he found me, how he held on to anything of himself, I still do not know. It is not a topic that there are words for, but I recall colours, patterns, a wide stretch of endless ocean and yet it had still been crushing, claustrophobic.

In truth I remember vivid fragments as if recalling a nightmare and the narrative I have pieced together from shocking surges of recollection in the days since. But my first memory is his hand, I remember the desperate anguish of his visage with bloody tears tracking from his eyes. We moved through the thick oppressive atmosphere, the pair of us and I could describe the palaces of bone, the realisation we were but lice crawling around the vast carapace of some leviathan. But still it seemed we plunged searching, searching in that darkness, slashing at the tentacles, weeping as the terror tried to slither into our human hearts and fragile thoughts.  
For James and Holmes to have spent such time in this place there was no question regarding their sanity, for the only effective shield were those thoughts of the indefinable bond between myself and John and I doubt that either of them had felt like that towards another.

I feared we had leapt into a place worse than the encroaching hell I had left behind. I finally called for the power that legend marked as the object of our quest, started to plead for help against the creature that had risen against us. I knew it would draw attention, and probably hasten our deaths, but the horror of walking over so many bones, massive bones of creatures that I had never seen in all my travels, feathery things and wild curls of, of... horn, perhaps tore at my thoughts.

There was one, winged, furred like a tiger and bedecked with curling horns as it leapt from the darkness and then sniffed at me. Teeth bloodstained and yet... it did not pounce. I remember confusion in eyes of green fire and the feel of hot breath on my throat and the strangled sound of John being buffeted casually to the ground as I was scrutinised.  
I just repeated the name again, the one John had taught me as if it was the only word that still existed. "Nodens, Nodens," and instead of eviscerating me, I was dragged deeper into darkness.

It felt like woods and waves overlapping, like every hunt I had ever been on, that moment where the world went narrow in pursuit, hot and exhausted and high on adrenaline and fear.

Running, endless running, I know not of how long for because time ebbs and flows in that places as liquid as the tides. We came to a place though, a place where yog-shoggoth seethed and boiled around a barrier they could not pass but seemed drawn to press against a perimeter that forbade them entrance. Oh the blood and carnage then. The Tiger devil pouncing for the joy of the hunt, John and myself flashing the rune etched heirloom blades to win our way into that strange sanctuary. And a sanctuary indeed it was with a wonder inside.

On a crystal plinth, the curves of which seemed unlike our reality, laid what looked like a delicate silver gauntlet. Too small to fit over a man’s hand, more the shape of a hand, well formed. It drew me in, with John, and that was the thing which Holmes had spoken of.

It was as if we could think and speak again in the presence of it. My companion leaned against me, his injuries evident. "The object of our quest. I do not know how long it has taken us to find it but we much work out how to unleash its power." We looked without touching but there was little there to indicate a clear course of action. We both assumed that if you touched it, then it would act as it had been intended.

“I...” I never have been a man of spoken word; the cunning turn of phrase comes too late, or as John has gently suggested with wry humour, not at all. I did a thing of impulse, my blood rushing as I leaned in to touch, just for a moment, my dear companion who I had missed.

He turned to look at me and in the moment our eyes met, I have never felt a knowledge of what another planned to do so clearly as I did then. He intended to spare me the consequence that no doubt lay upon this artefact like some ancient curse; he intended to be the sacrifice this time for the feeling I knew he felt was unrequited...

He was in fact a mirror to my own thoughts and yet he was at a disadvantage. I am taller with a longer reach.  
It was my finger tips that brushed the moon silver surface of the gauntlet first.

After that, it did blur. I felt such pain, pain as I had not felt since I had been captive in the mountains, down in the dank dark water, with suckers stuck to my skin and melding hotly against me, withering my life away with fear and pain. It was that same searing contact, as the silver hand unfurled itself like a lotus flower, and crawled against my skin, fitting itself into place like a living thing.

And then it snapped shut over top of what had been my right hand.

I knew instantly that should I try to take it off, there would be nothing left underneath worth saving. Yet it felt as responsive as flesh, as much feeling and possessing a thrumming sense of power.  
"Sebastian, what have you done?" John cried out reaching to examine it. "Are you in pain?"

“Only for a moment.” I clenched the fingers and they responded, and I knew then that I was to carry the burden, and the honor, until the day it was claimed from me or… I still do not know. Yet there was a residual pain where the base fused into my skin.

"Can you feel what it might do?" John asked touching that sensitive skin carefully. "We can waste no more time."

I made sure that I could still strongly hold my blade in its grasp, and nodded John. We turned to head, gods help us, back the way we had come. That is where my memory in my mind began to unravel just enough to make the pieces hard to grasp even now. I felt as if I had a pack of hounds at my side, I felt it in my chest that we were off for a victorious pursuit, but the creatures that shadowed us, that fell into stride with us were not of any comfort.

There was a command there, something that swayed the lesser beings. This was what it meant to be Royal in this realm, obedience, strength a predators full due. The surprise came when we came across those that were not instantly cowed by this emblem of dominion. The silver hand blazed and my weapon became a blade of light, sending out a deathly attack that cut deep into fleshy polyps and seething flesh to draw ichor. I became intoxicated with it, laughing manically but time and again that brief human touch from my human companion grounded me once more.

I could have carried on raving without John there, battle mad like so many other soldiers deep in the pit of a fight. I half thought the demon tiger crossed through the gate with us with others of its ilk, but I couldn’t compel myself to strike down such a beautiful creature, and with all that ruin in the world, what was one more?

Erupting out of the rift back into our plane there was only a marginal difference as enough of the taint of that plane had rolled across the living world. There, off the south west coast, the dread sunken city R'lyeh had risen summoned by the corrupted genius of my one time friend and the hunger of Cthulhu lashed the sky. Storms writhed and raged, steeped in unearthly torment the constant illumination of flickering lightning bringing forth nightmare being born. I focused for a moment, seeing James there on the cliff edge triumphant in adoration.

No loyalty to our Queen, who had shown him such fond favour, no loyalty to our cause of maintaining the queen’s peace. It was all gone, wiped away by whatever he had experienced. And I was infuriated by this treason.

I guess it is true that once a soldier, always a soldier because I served Albion, the great Empire - this had been our binding connection and now I felt betrayed again as his human shape was swallowed by the living shadow of the summonsed Great Old One. Instantly, I saw the enemy and the Hand of Nodens flared silver once more. Clear stark light penetrating the screaming gloom as I tried to collect my thoughts of how I might strike the monstrous form down.

"Cannon," John murmured in my ear, a calm voice in the eye of the storm. "You do not need to jump into the city heart to wreak destruction. Feel the cannon's roar and hurl the energy at it."

With his calm guidance, I did. I loosed energy I didn’t know could be held by mortal form, held the hand open and pushed, striking a whirlwind of wet stinking blades and elemental force like a hurricane against the enemy.

Its impact was as terrifyingly efficient as our cannon had been in Afghanistan. I cast and cast but the enemy had recognised a threat and was converging on our position. John was at my back, protecting it, bellowing orders to troops who had been demoralised to form up and protect this new weapon of ours.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I had a battalion again.

I started barking out orders, trying to organize them as if we were fighting in the jungles rather than the shoreline, and kept throwing power at the city, crashing down immense curved gravity defying towers, and then the beast turned toward us.

We were a pitiful sight compared to the immensity of this most legendary of the Great Old Ones, ants scuttling on the shore as it filled the sky. A single swipe of a clawed hand would tear the coastline apart; a single beat of the wings would tear the clouds to shreds.   
But the legends had said this silver hand could defeat those of Royal blood, or banish them and I refocused daring to make a strike once again at a Great Old One.

We’d killed one, I thought turning my thoughts back to the Baskerville heath and a night long Battle with John where we had in defiance of all expectation we had slain Hastur, and there was nothing to lose. Do or die, and I planned to go into the west fighting, desperate and angry at the world around us, wild with rage that this was happening to a place that was mine.

Or the Hand’s.

Beside me John appeared to be shouting at someone and I realised we had been joined by the infamous Rache himself who looked like one of the Prophets of the End Times.

"Make yourself bloody useful Sherlock, what do we do?" John was shouting at the wild-eyed man who seemed to be muttering to himself "Forget Moriarty, tell me what we should do!"

"With. Within the city, a time, time stasis bubble," Sherlock gestured hand shaking. "Where he dreams, dreams waiting. Cthulhu will not stop until the world is consumed, cannot stop. Hand is the Key to a lock, Key which will lock."

For all the disjointedness of his speech, the mind was brilliant still and I knew instantly he was right. Something had held Cthulhu dreaming and if it could not be destroyed then perhaps it could be returned.

I needed to move to the city, then, and the compulsion of the hand to go do move now was enough to white out my senses, as the hand took control. The city, the city itself I still cannot describe with accuracy, as letting my mind touch on it in detail leaves me feeling deeply unwell and shaken.  
I became aware that this was not a symbiotic relationship with the Hand. The longer it went on, something very draining occurred. It was not completely unexpected. I had expected sacrifice and the power of the gods is double edged at best.  
John must have literally grabbed hold of me as I moved by forces beyond my ken into the stinking warped city. All the angles were skewed, stairways upside down, doors in ceilings. Things slithered in the brine dripping street and above us, Cthulhu peered down at us lowering its monstrous head and sending seeking tentacles as we half ran through the streets.

There was nothing to do but to follow the power, to feed it and to let it do what I, what we, had begged it to do. The fury didn’t ebb, not did my urge to survive. If it took me, so be it; I held no fear as we raced, and slowly some things, hunting creatures, gathered at the edges of my awareness to nip and nick at the slithering danger.

I seemed to know though where to go, or the Hand did and I could not waste strength fighting swarms of petty creatures. We evaded rather than engaged for with each passing moment countless souls perished, sucked into that cavernous maw and time was of the essence.  
Eventually we stood in the heart of city in front of an altar with a hand imprint prominent untouched by deep immersion in the sea. Strange glyphs surrounded it, warnings or instruction I was not sure but John was more knowledgeable.

I heard John inhale sharply and begin an ancient chant. The pull to it became irresistible as it lit as a beacon and the anger of the Great Old One was sharply focused on us, and we were battered by its rage.

The desperate urgency faded, and I knew with a glowing excellent certainty that I was finally going to triumph. Again. The thought came unbidden - Again? It had to be the presence of the Hand that was imparting these strange thoughts. Following the instinct burning in my bones I slammed my hand down with a crushing force, over the indentation, and was shocked by the sudden surge of fire that came over me.

In my mind I was aware as if my hand became something vaster than Cthulhu itself, reaching up to grasp around it but I was burning, burning, burning and something greater was there taking over. Another presence wrestling the chthonic beast into its cage. I barely recognised the moment it worked, only that my bones felt like they were burning and John was screaming at me, his hands gripped around my wrist to pull me free, headless of the flames. One of Cthulhu’s very tentacles lashed at us striking John directly as it was sucked into that cage of gods and the irony was that probably saved us from the ultimate sacrifice.

The great force broke the connection, and we staggered backward, falling onto uneven slick tiles that curved and warped around us. I was half howling, and the creatures that had been at our sides chittered and were attempting to get in to us.

The city was sinking, and John was trying to hold me up despite his grievous injury, striving to fight and drag me through the rising water. Ichor stained the water around us and John seemed to be failing too as the sea rushed back in.

I had forgotten that tigers could swim; it made sense that the great owner of the Hand had hunting beasts that could swim as well, as the tiger creature with the wings and horns paddled up to us leisurely. Would that I could write that I valiantly dragged us to the creature and straddled its back, but no, like an interested dog it nosed over to us and slipped us onto its back with great hooked horns.

We would not have survived the sinking of R'lyeh without its help. I remember lying on its back to exhausted to move, rocked by waves with John beside me, his hand stained red with blood grasping my hand of silver.

As stories go, there are too many gaps in my recollection for it to be true recounting of events. The Victory was won, but the war continued.

While the great beast went back to sleep, the damage to our coasts and infrastructure was done; the incursion of great shoggoths and other beasts could not be undone, and they have to be hunted down and destroyed.

Enclaves of ancient protections were activated and it was to one of these that John and myself were taken barely sensible of our surroundings. For it seemed that our immersion in the unnatural energies had a debilitating effect, let alone the burns and injuries. I had fortunately been conscious enough to vouch for him, at least to begin with but I feared what happens next. For the silver Hand is inert upon my wrist, its intoxicating power a memory, reduced to a symbol rather than a weapon.

It still moves and I can still control it and manipulate it as a hand. But the power is gone and I often find myself weak. Perhaps, as John suggests, it need to charge itself once more.   
The truth is the only thing I am sure of now is his presence by my side.

We were granted a room, when many bivouac outside on the grounds, and in the forests. It was damp but there was a fire, and we are allowed to partake of the foods in the house though John was beset by fevers and violent illness that troubled me intensely. Some are frightened of us, or me, and some would worship us as gods.

The horde of Royal bloods that appear to have acknowledged me as an alpha, or in the case of the tiger demon, a half grown kitten badly in need of feeding from the way it delivers carcasses to my door has encouraged this perception, but in reality I have never felt more helpless as I have done while watching John’s deterioration.

It feels needful to put this down, as I had documented my smaller triumphs so honestly, and published so many stories that had raised James’ profile in the public eye. There is no publication industry, not any longer, but it is still important to leave a history. John did not escape our adventure unscathed, and has spent as much time warming the bed as I do, between valiant attempts to contribute to the functioning of our small society.

It would seem he is stubborn in his refusal to let injuries get the better of him when his medical knowledge is needed so much and also the information that he gleaned from Sherlock Holmes. The younger Holmes, to our mutual surprise has survived and is recovering his wits though John still has to act as an interpreter to his leaps of logic.

Our conversation when we both awoke in makeshift convalescent beds next to each other was far from the congratulations you might expect. Instead John took me thoroughly to task for endangering my life with such a reckless action and it came to me that his aggression was due to fear. Here was a man who had faced the unimaginable, walked in the very Rings of Hell and the only thing he truly feared was my reckless disregard of my own fate.

“And you would have done the same thing,” I had countered, clutching weirdly at the strangeness that was the new hand.

"Yes, but I am not a rallying point of the Empire," John answered, his eyes fever bright. "I am fugitive, outcast, luridly drawn in reward posters. You needed to be the one to survive. It is sheer luck that you have done so."

It was such an absurd argument to be having when we were at the time alive and laying who knew where. Some small human outpost, though I eventually learned that we had rallied better than should have been expected. Albion was keen about unity that way, and had been for centuries. “No talent involved?”

"A talent for trouble perhaps," he said in an exasperated tone. "Truth be told, for a moment I believed I was once again dealing with Sherlock rather than the Colonel. To touch such an artefact with no forethought... why did you do this?"

I paused and turned the answer over in my mind a few times before I offered words that felt dishonorably childish, “Because you were going to touch it first. You’d done enough for us all.”

He gave me a look then that was at first puzzled and then confused. It appeared I had confounded his thoughts as if he did not understand that I regarded him highly.

I thought of that moment by the Obelisk, when I had come so close to being flayed down to nothing. Closer still than I felt even then, though there was more of a jumble behind my eyes as I laid there. “I thought I had more of a chance of surviving, since Gloriana declared me a companion.”

He seemed to accept that explanation though it was evident his thoughts tossed and turned as did my own. "Are you in pain with it?" he asked. "Perhaps there is something more that can be done."

“No, it feels like a hand. The power is gone out if it.” And, so it felt then so I have guessed since it had stopped draining me.

"I must confess I was prepared to sever your hand," John said. "If pulling you away did not work. You were being consumed by the mechanism."

It was something that rang true with my experience.

“I’m not sure what’s left,” I had admitted, and started to survey our surroundings, with care, just to see what sorts of people considered us worth rescuing. “Do you think it needed more to hold?”

"It accomplished the task it was designed for. I believe a Great Old One such as Cthulhu cannot be destroyed completely as they never fully exist on this plane. Hastur was an exception. In coming all the way through the tear at Baskerville, he was incarnate, Cthulhu was semi-incarnate at best," John said attempting to move and finding it impossible. "Indestructible, but not uncontainable. "

“I miss the Wars. Never had to do math like that.” Just glassy pools and survival. John was covered in wounds, and I worried about what had been in the water and the strike of a Great Old One on human skin.

"A certain basic appeal of right and wrong," John concurred. "I cannot appear to move - I suspect my time of liberty is at an end as I cannot disappear into the night."

Such had been our partnership; the fight had been the two of us, but John had always had to slip away.

“You’ve done more for the crown than half the armies.” I cleared my throat, trying to draw attention to sort it while I was still awake.

"For Albion, rather than the crown," John murmured. "I am a traitor to the Royal blood. The irony is, you now potentially have more Royal bloods following you than Victoria Gloriana."

“And we had a rescuer.” Horns and wings and tiger stripes surfaced in my memory. “Perhaps it shouldn’t all be lines of blood against blood.”

"You brought your own army from Beyond," John agreed. He slumped back defeated by the demands of his body. "It would appear Sebastian that I am weaker than I first thought. I will be of little use to you now."

“The metal is helping me stay leaning up,” I quipped, waving at someone passing by. Once their attention was caught, I asked where we were.

"Avalon," came the reply. It was an area rife with ancient sacred sites that stood as an enclave.

Avalon. It was a relief to hear, but I pressed what felt like my good fortune in that moment. “Who’s in charge?”

"Mycroft Holmes," was the answer and I supposed that was good news even if John groaned and lay back on his pillow. 

It could have been James - part of me mourned for the days that it should have been James at his finest. Bright eyed intelligence, keen loyalty, dogged determination to protect Albion.  
Not power or, or nihilism maddened, willing to throw himself into the maw of death and ruin. A part of me, not as groggy as I would have liked, hoped that the creature he'd become had succeeded in flinging itself into the maw this time. "Ah, then I won't have to argue."

We were left to our own devices for some time, John soon realising he would have to treat himself for lack of personnel, which he did but did not mention his prognosis. I made it out of the tent before he did and found Avalon like a home from home, laid out like a military base.

Where I walked there were whispers and crowds who stood and stared at me in a way that made me long for the acerbic nagging of my tent companion, but it did not stop me seeking out Mycroft Holmes. For all I knew, my venture into the Beyond had been useless. Albion may have fallen.

I was mobile and afoot and I needed urgently to see what I could do, and if my hopes were to be dashed. I should have changed clothes, though what I might have changed into wasn’t immediately obvious. Still, the tendencies of a gentleman are not easily dismissed.

Appearances were the heart of civilised society. It was easy enough to find my way to the heart of Avalon and Mycroft Holmes would be at that heart. It was as if his haunt in London had been recreated for a building had been transformed into the very image of the Gentlemen's club he frequented. The challenge to my presence was minimal and I had to assume that Mycroft Holmes had left orders, or that I had passed into infamy.

That there were buildings to be found at all astonished me at the time, though I did not understand at the time how hit and miss the damage had been to the country. A bedraggled looking young officer escorted me to him.

"Ah, Colonel Moran, please sit," Mycroft said. It was my surprise to see that Sherlock Holmes was also in the room, uncharacteristically quiet but with a focus back in his gaze that would no doubt please John. "If I had known that you were this recovered, I would have prioritised a visit."

“I needed to assure that Doctor Watson was going to be allowed to stay. He tried valiantly to flee but he is in poor shape.” And I wondered now about everything impeccable Mycroft had done when Rache had been roving. I felt winded having walked there, and stared down at the hand for a moment.

"A drink to fortify you," Mycroft said. "Never fear, Doctor Watson is rehabilitated in the eyes of the public. It could be scarcely be otherwise considering the multitudes of witnesses to your mutual heroism."

“We have that many survivors from the battle, do we?” I invited myself to a seat, and looked at Sherlock while I waited for an answer. I had a bit of admiration for the man when we’d first encountered him and it had only grown over the years.

"Yes. The general population of Albion remains high, though we lost many at the Battle. The positioning of the raising of R'lyeh meant the active zone eclipsed France as well. " He was of Royal blood, I was sure. "If you had been much delayed, then those figures would be very different. With each passing moment our people were consumed."

It was hard to tell if he meant literally or, well, yes. Literally. “Do we have contact with the continent? How far were the incursions?” It was not as if there had been an instruction manual on what to do; it had been luck, all of it, and John’s insistence.

"The Enemy attempted invasion points at key area's within our territory while we had the bulk of our forces at the main point of contact," Mycroft answered and looked at me. "The continent has been undergoing great turmoil. The amount of power required for their Domesday weapon involved a vast level of sacrifice, leaving their own borders unattended. The recklessness of their actions has turned many neutral factions against them as it is recognized Cthulhu would have devoured the world and... frankly, the European states are in chaos. The information received from Sherlock and Professor Moriarty's sojourn into the Beyond enabled me to make contingency plans and find and activate the ancient defenses, and evacuate accordingly."

Chugging along unknown to me and probably John. “And do you think the city will remain submerged?” At least in our lifetime, but for humanity to recover properly we would need at least two or three generations without such an incursion.

"Yes. They do not have the resources to try and release it again," he replied. "As it is, Albion is under martial law. The Royal Family is in hiding and conscription is in effect."

“Good show we’ve already volunteered then.” That drink arrived, and I was almost surprised to find it was hot mulled wine, and a bit grungy tasting which really warmed my heart. Soldiers at work kicking together the best things they could think of.

"Your rank is reinstated, as is that of your companion," Mycroft confirmed. " You will find it perhaps interesting that you are one of our highest ranking military officers that is not incapacitated. As such, I would like your opinion on our situation."

He opened a map that had areas of colour delineated. "You can see the occupied territory."

It was like putting on the old boots, and though I was exhausted and disoriented, my brain could still click and whir and plan battles. I took in the areas marked, and grimaced; farmland, some areas of Portsmouth of all places, which I supposed hadn’t been as holy as some of our other cities.

London still remained under our control and Avalon was at a core of home territory. I could see that Baskerville remained neutral and instantly was forming opinions of where we should deploy. 

"There is a divergence of opinion about where we should counter attack first," Mycroft said mildly.

I pointed to the bit of farmland between London and Baskerville that had been breached. “Push them back before they try to summon hell through that hellish pit.”

"We should attack the Black City," Sherlock interrupted breaking his unnatural silence. "You know we should. This is our only chance."  
He sounded lucid, and sharp but as obsessed as James had been.

I stared for a moment and it was one of the few times I almost caught his meaning. “We haven’t got the power for it. I’m back to mortal. John and I barely made it to the other side last time, and only because that tiger demon took a fancy to us.”

"Ah yes, your bloodline," Mycroft dropped that revelation into the conversation as if it was not news to him. "The fact is we do not have the weapon to make an impact. Its energy is discharged."

"But it could be recharged,” he said. "There are places and rituals."

Which was true. It was true but I pragmatically said, “We must organize, and we must reestablish ourselves. Or there won’t be anything to come back to.”

"They are the weakest they have ever been," Sherlock said and his eyes burned with fanaticism. "Now is the time for a surprise attack."

"And we are at the weakest we have ever been," Mycroft said. "I concur that we need to seal our shores to incursion. My sources tell me that you and Dr Watson know how to seal portal sites is this correct?"

“Yes,” I offered, because he knew and he didn’t need to check with me. “It’s been John’s lead on that, though I paid attention to what he taught me.”

"Then we will prepare for an assault when you are recovered sufficiently. Perhaps you should see if one of your Royal followers from the Beyond has the capacity to heal," Mycroft suggested. "I would think that John might benefit from direct healing. Wounds from a Royal are notoriously resistant to modern medicine and I suspect he has been trying to spare you concern."

I took another sip of the wine. “I’ll see what I can find.” And clothes for the weather, and someone to see to John, someone of any sort. My mind was worrying at Mycroft’s comment about bloodlines, like a nick in a tooth.

"In the meantime, feel free to contribute to the running of Avalon," Mycroft said. "You will find that your word is highly respected, and your commands obeyed."

If he knew me at all he’d know I would be dismayed by that sentiment in anything other than a martial sense of the concept. “I’ll do what I can to contribute, sir. I should see about getting John patched up...” Now that I was sure he was not going to be tried for treason.

"Indeed," Mycroft acknowledged. "And once more I must extend the thanks of the Empire for your service to Albion."

Service to Albion. After the blow we’d taken, I was not even sure if there was an empire, as such, left. “Save the thanks. The hard part is still to come.”

"Agreed. See to your companion," Mycroft instructed. "It would appear that we will have to rewrite history to accommodate his heroism. The same will apply to my brother."

Humans were good at rewriting history, though I do not want to reach back in time and change what I've put to pen already. I went back to the tent, and hunted up someone to see to John, and tried to weigh who or what might be capable of bringing true healing to him.

It had been Victoria Gloriana who had cured me of the deep wounds from my experiences in Afghanistan. So it was with that knowledge I hunted down some of those of the Blood who had come through with us from the Beyond. They were enshrined, and tended to by zealots, the awe surrounding them giving them sustenance. It appeared however that I was immune to their effects.

I wondered if that was the type of creature whose blood I shared, to not be moved so, to not even feel the flipping in my stomach that I associated with most of the Royals, the thin stretch of tension.

It was different; where many of the others felt cold, draining and despair the winged tiger demon felt like night and fire, heat blazing. It stood as I approached, towering over me and I felt within me that spark of kinship. There was no dread in meeting its gaze and curiously I felt safe. Mycroft Holmes was right, this was no mere ally, this was Family.

And a family that left me less trembling with anger and frustration than my father had. That spark was dazzling, and more than anything I wanted to reach out to touch the dread fur, that seemed to be crystal sharp to the naked eye.

But that was not why I was there. "Can you heal?" I asked. "I know you are skilled fighters but there is one who needs healing of the injuries of the Beyond. The one that fought at my side with you."

It seemed to understand me, but didn't answer -- except with a bone rattling noise from its chest, and a smell of blood, coppery and warm in the air. It turned, as if looking behind it, and its horns swept the air before it moved to pad off in the direction of the tent.

Given opportunity I would have warned John before this Royal entered our tent and seized hold of him. To his credit he was grasping towards this heirloom sword even surprised out of sleep. I had to shout to reassure him and even within the clutches of a potential enemy he stilled at my word.

"Sebastian, what ...is this?"

"Help. For your wounds." I was sure there would be something owed in the transaction, but perhaps freeing it in the first place had been what it was looking for. It gathered John up in paws that bent strangely, too many joints to track with the eyes, and pulled him into dangerous living fur.

It was no healing balm of bliss applied from John's reaction as a bloody red light seem to shake from within the fur to cover him, drawing noises of pain through the wall of his stoicism. It was more like a cauterising fire burning out the unnatural energies that clung to festering wounds and then melted skin back together.

The tiger eyes glowed brightly as this rough healing occurred and it roared before nuzzling at John's shaking body. It was a strange action as if it had enjoyed the reaction to what it had done, or had fed upon it somehow.

I moved to catch him as the creature lowered John only slowly to the bed again. Perhaps it enjoyed the energies that had clung to John, or the pain. I was not sure, though I was grateful.

"By all the ancient gods," John murmured. "I feel torn apart, and yet my injuries have bound themselves." It was a paradox, but I could clearly see fresh scars where there had been bleeding suppurating wounds.

Like ancient needling that I had seen done of old thick scars in the battlefield. “Thank you, thank you...” if it wanted something else, other than some scraps of the tent fabric, it would take it or whatever pleased it, I had no doubt. I let my hands travel over John’s upper chest, feeling. The withering was gone.

It rumbled and left us and John looked up at me. "Thank you. I hope that bargain will not cost you in the future," he said. "I would berate you, but I cannot in good conscience do so. I have treated enough wounds to know mine were of the type that were usually mortal."

“And growing worse rather than better,” I agreed, still half in awe that both of us were alive and even partially functional. It is an awe that lingers with me to this day.

"It appears you will not be rid of me that easily," he answered. " Now tell me what news you have discovered."

I told him of everything I knew that had passed, from Mycroft. We schemed, and I located food, and slept, and liaised with what was left of the Officer Corp that had been gathered up, and we moved from our temporary bivouac to a more fortified location, still of the Avalon complex.

The fact remains that by default we have become the lynchpin of our counter offensive. Rank or not, we are deferred to by virtue of our status as bonafide heroes in the eyes of the public and our colleagues. I find the responsibility at once familiar and terrifying, but I am determined to win back Albion. The one thing that concerns me more than the battles to come is that no one can tell me the fate of James. It would seem he has vanished from the face of the earth.

I hope, wherever he is, he is pleased with himself. I suspect that he is, dead or alive, because it was never like him to be otherwise.

We have a task ahead of us, and it seems strange not to have him there as we face the enemies of the Empire we strove for so long to defend together. But now is a time for action, not intrigue and that has always been my forte. If we can secure the capital, the political ramification will become more important but until then, this is a time for soldiers and brothers in arms.


End file.
